When an underage girl admitted that she had an affair with one-time Chief Minister of Melaka State, Rahim Thambi Chik, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared that she is not to be believed because she is a girl of loose morals.

That she is of “loose morals” was “confirmed” by someone close to Rahim and this Rahim aide went on to relate how his Chief Minister Boss got entangled with the girl.

“One day, Rahim phoned her house to speak to the elder sister. Rahim was in fact having an affair with the elder sister,” said the Rahim aide.

“The elder sister was not home, though, and the younger sister took the call. This younger sister then said she had been meaning to meet Rahim for some time, so Rahim invited her over to his office.”

“The younger sister then went to Rahim’s office where she told him she wanted to borrow some money. Rahim told her to return the next day as he did not have any cash on him, but to come after 4.00pm when everyone had gone home.”

“The next day, the younger sister went to Rahim’s office after 4.00pm and that’s when the affair with the younger sister started. In fact, they had sex, there and then, in the office,” said the Rahim aide chuckling with delight.

The girl disappeared soon after the story broke and, according to this Rahim aide, he and two other people had smuggled her to Thailand for a “holiday”. The girl’s frantic grandmother, after failing to find her granddaughter, made a police report. It was feared she had been arrested to get her out of circulation.

Lim Guan Eng, the son of Lim Kit Siang, the Chairman of the Democratic Action Party, came to the grandmother’s defence and took the police to task for persecuting the underage rape victim while allowing the criminal Chief Minister to walk free. For his outspokenness, Lim Guan Eng was sent to jail for 18 months.

Anwar Ibrahim, who was then still in the government, was terribly unhappy about the whole matter. In a meeting with Malaysian students in London, Anwar spoke about how these are some of the many travesties of justice that need to be addressed.

Even when still in the government Anwar was calling for Reformation, which is “Reformasi” in Malay. Anwar was bent on bringing Rahim to book and, through Umno Youth, he pressured Rahim to resign as the Umno Youth Chief as well as Chief Minister of Melaka. Zahid Hamidi, the Deputy Youth Chief then, took over as the new Umno Youth Chief.

But that was all Rahim suffered - he had to resign from his posts as Umno Youth Chief and Melaka Chief Minister. He was never brought to trial for his crime of statutory rape as, according to the Attorney-General then, “there was not enough evidence to press charges.”

And who was this Attorney-General? Mohtar Abdullah, of course; who recently died after lingering in a coma for 11 months.

Zahid Hamidi, who was by then the new Umno Youth Chief and who, today, is still in Umno as a “has been”, was outraged. He went round the country telling the Umno Youth grassroots leaders that Mohtar Abdullah had “fixed” Rahim’s case.

Zahid related how he had led an Umno Youth delegation to meet Mohtar to enquire into the progress of the case against Rahim and the Attorney-General told them he had received instructions from the top to drop the case.

The way it was done, said the infuriated Zahid, was they told the girl to describe the crucial part of Rahim’s body that was instrumental in the deed, basically his private parts. When the girl could not make a specific description - such as its length and size - it was declared that they lacked sufficient evidence and the case against Rahim was dropped.

Zahid was disturbed by all this and he made his concern known to the Umno Youth grassroots leaders. He felt that Mohtar had intentionally created this “technicality” to enable them to drop the case against Rahim. In fact, said Zahid, the Attorney-General never said Rahim was innocent of the charge. He merely said there was insufficient evidence to proceed further.

Zahid was subsequently detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in September 1998 on grounds of being a “threat to national security” – he and a few others were alleged to be behind the pro-Anwar Reformasi demonstrations.

“My arrest under the Internal Security Act had nothing to do with Anwar Ibrahim though that’s what they made it look like,” said Zahid. “I was detained because of the Rahim Thambi Chik case.”

“To secure my release from ISA detention, I was forced to confess that I believe Anwar is guilty of sodomy. In fact, even if Anwar himself had confessed in front of me that he had sodomised Azizan, I would still not believe it,” saidZahid.

Rahim was spared prosecution because the underage girl he was alleged to have raped could not precisely describe certain parts of his body. And her word alone was not good enough because she is supposed to be someone of loose morals.

Anwar Ibrahim’s accuser, Azizan, not only could not be specific about exactly when Anwar was supposed to have sodomised him (was in 1993, 1994 or 1995 and was it in January, February or March?), but he even testified under oath, THREE TIMES, that Anwar NEVER sodomised him, yet, not only was Anwar indicted, but they even secured a conviction. And Azizan was subsequently arrested and jailed six months for a sexual offence, which certainly makes him a person of loose morals according to Dr Mahathir’s interpretation, and therefore one not to be believed.

Rahim eventually got his revenge on Anwar when he “sponsored” the book “50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Become Prime Minister” that was the basis of the police investigation on Anwar’s “sexual misconduct”. Is it a coincidence that the book was published by a company in Melaka that was “renting” a building owned by Rahim and was it by chance that 2,000 copies of the book mysteriously found its way into the folders of the Umno delegates at the 1998 General Assembly?

Oh, and for his “service”, the Rahim aide was given 1,000 acres of prime land in Melaka, beside the PLUS Highway, which he subsequently sold to HICOM for a princely sum – and he and Rahim lived happily after.